The Day of Thunder

[Akodo Kenji]

But I have to address some of this horseshit right here, and while I had logged out of Dawn with no intention to do any posting as Kenji anymore, this had to be said and has to be said openly.

I was told I should quit. They're probably right.

I legit don't know who is doing all this private bitching and moaning but whoever they are, from me to them, they can screw right off.

I'm very tired of people being so immature and taking it out on GMs all over a game and throwing fits because they didn't get to be 'special' or whatever.

Being a GM is extremely challenging, it's an endless balancing act of trying to take care of a bunch of people's different visions and try to give them all a chance to fit, even though some fit better than others. I've had to deal with this when I GM, I'm sure most other GMs have too. Canary has been wildly more willing to try and incorporate player ideas than most GMs, probably more than even necessary, and the only thanks seems to be more drama and childish gossip and hidden cruelty.

I'm very disappointed in everyone rushing out at the end of the game to complain instead of dealing with one another maturely, as adults, with an OOC and IC separation and an understanding that their characters are not them, and that none of this is real life - it is all a fantasy story.

I'm sorry that I can't offer enough offsetting positivity, but I really want to encourage the GM team to cast off the hate and be proud of doing the best they could. It isn't the GM's fault when players decide to act like petty children - and it's really unfortunate that people chose passive aggression and to bottle things up and then lash out indiscriminately instead of politely trying to work things out before they got heated.

Get your head out of your ass Kei, and actually listen to what people are fucking saying. People that are stating with their problems to the gm team in a constructive manner to try and help this community are not children, and you stating that they are only exacerbates an already delicate situation, and anyone that chimed in on his coat tails are equally guilty as well. You do not even know all the various forms of complaints that have been lobbied and here you are talking out of your ass and calling people children. If someone here needs to grow up it's you.

I'm happy you are glad you got to play a in my personal opinion an illegal build, that would be banned by any other gm team that has been a part of this community. That you got to remove requirements from the rank 3 ronin school you took so you could make it work and ignore any form of different school requirements because why the hell not. But you have to get it into your head that while this makes you happy, there are other people that will object to that sort of nonsense, and that sort of objection does not make them any less for it. Some people want everyone to be on an even playing field, and don't want to bother the gm teams with special characters or special items to be effective as a character. Of course, that's probably my whiny child in me saying, rules should be stated and observed, and you shouldn't let people bypass them or write them out for the rule of cool. Because if you do, it will cause problems, and you will get the people abusing them starting to abuse those that are complaining. Which as any with two eyes can see is bad for the fucking community.

Jesus fucking Christ. I walked away from dawn one after joining it hesitantly I had recently had some IC problems with Canary and didn't know if i wanted to give it a go. I created a tribe and tried to give it a honest go to move past things. I quit on something like day four because I saw what I believed signs of blatant and egregious favoritism. I passed out what I wrote of the tribe to the other players that were members and i made my quiet exit. The game was not for me. Fast forward a few years, with me avoiding Canary and we get to Hoth. I do not bring the character that I want to bring because I don't want to cause undue friction, but during the game I receive an apology from Canary for the way things ended up and I accept.

Now comes Dawn 4, I'm 100% against joining I figure it will remain a mess of favoritism and rulings I disagree with. But people encourage me to give it another try, and Canary did offer me an olive branch, so I believe I owe it a second go around. Not to mention I respect Tyrus and he has encouraged me to play in the past. I join, I roll my eyes at a few things, point out that I believe Yuakra's build is illegal, the gm team tells me it's fine. I point out I disagree, and just block Yukara. Not my fucking problem. I'll roll through until the end because I like the Lion and I want to make sure there is a pc Lion thunder. Then this fucking gut punch of a ruling comes in. viewtopic.php?p=16359#p16359

And suddenly it feels like I might be disqualified from being a thunder because the gm team doesn't like me. Or I fail some sort of qualification that I don't even know what the fuck it is. Maybe I was too mean to the fucking villagers? Who the fuck knows. It was walked back though, and I stayed. I stayed because this setting matters to some of the people I know, and they wanted to see a Lion Thunder. Things only really went downhill from there though. But I stuck it out, happily got killed by Tyrus, and abandoned this series of games because it is not the place for me.

I did make some parting comments in my pf, because I respect Canary enough to explain what I think he did wrong, and why I think it was wrong. Favoritism was mentioned there, but it was not any of the major talking points. I also mentioned that he might want to consider ending the Dawn Campaign series, because I believe it is unhealthy for this community and Canary. Not eating for days and losing 15 pounds if fucking dangerous. If something needs to end to avoid that shit it needs to happen. You also tell by all this blowing up in Q and A's that something isn't healthy here, and it needs to be addressed before any future Dawn games. Because for the large part you only see this shit in Dawn, and no amount of gaslighting or happy comments are going to erase the fact.

Fuck it I'm done. The people that want to get ahold of me know how to do it already. For those that don't my discord is in my Q and A.
You won't see me on this forum again. So, comment if you want but I don't particularly care.

-Even out.

[Togashi Satsuki]

This post here as my support. And I know I was among the ones who tried to encourage Kenji to play, because Canary had apologised for some things done in the past, and I supported moving forward and accepting that apology. Let's try to have fun with Day of Thunder, I thought.

I've kept my own grievances to my Private Forum, but I support what the players of Kenji, Kai, Yumi, Tai, and Tae-soo have said in public. Continuing positivity and ignoring critiques others may have is borderline toxic positivity that is contributing to further harm. Try to be understanding that there are people who feel upset about many things and has nothing to do with things like not being chosen as Thunder or Homecoming Queen. There are critiques being directed against repeated favoritism, double-standards, and the overall health of the community at large. The reason why it feels like things are blowing up now is because too long it's been kept under a lid, shoved under a rug, and ignored.

And that is not a healthy way to deal with problems.

[Kaijarisuigyo]

Not eating for days and losing 15 pounds if fucking dangerous.

No, seriously, if you defend the opinion nothing is wrong in the face of things like that...

I was actually suggesting looking at your local lawbook under the duty to rescue section. But it's apparently not a thing in most of the US.

Which might explain why people are reacting so differently to the current situation. Or not. Not the subject.

You also tell by all this blowing up in Q and A's that something isn't healthy here, and it needs to be addressed before any future Dawn games. Because for the large part you only see this shit in Dawn, and no amount of gaslighting or happy comments are going to erase the fact.

My own opinion is more than there is a core of structural issues shared by all games, that tend to bloom into more specific issues.

For example, favoritism, because this word seems to be on everyone's lips, exist in very much every game, to a different degree. Because GM are humans, with feelings, not machines, and will, even subconsciously, always favor other humans they are in harmony with.

But, this, still in my opinion, wouldn't be that much of an issue if the structure of these games allowed for more transparency.

For example, a simple thing, that's just a drop, but every drop helps: As of now, the rule "don't join a limited event if you have already been in one" is mostly implicit. There's literally nothing preventing us from making it explicit.

It might sound innocuous say like that. But, really, that's one less source of stress dealt with in one sentence. Doubly so for new players.

Of course, we could go further. For example, announcing (planned) limited events 24 hours prior. Or even randomize, thanks to one Excel macro shared from game to game, four players who haven't been in any event so far as having priority, i.e. if they confirm during the 24 hours period, their spot is secure.

But I'm getting into specific solutions to specific problems, and not necessarily the best. Improvements will have to be iterative, and, yes, sometimes, a change made with the best intentions will prove a bad idea and be eventually discarded for further games. We also make mistakes when trying to fix mistakes. Shouldn't make us live in fear of trying to fix them.

But back on transparency. The idea is that if everything that is already impartial, or at least trying to be, does appear at such, then the actual issues will stand out, not be muddled with Toku Charles' player thinking there's a conspiracy when they actually just failed the wrong dice roll.

Of course, that transparency will never be perfect. Games are always moving forward, there will be calls made in the spur of the moment, some will be wrong. Some players will also always act in bad faith faced with things not going the way they think they should have gone.

But as always, perfect is not the target. Just improving what can be improved, starting with the most high impact and the easiest changes.

[Wu Zhe]

Harm is not always a question of intent but always a question of impact.

If your critisms wounds the GMs then introspection is warranted.

Complaining heavily about the game before leaving, saying that the GMs should quit too can certainly be taken as aggressive.

[Ryoshun Yukara]

But I have to address some of this horseshit right here, and while I had logged out of Dawn with no intention to do any posting as Kenji anymore, this had to be said and has to be said openly.

Get your head out of your ass Kei, and actually listen to what people are fucking saying. People that are stating with their problems to the gm team in a constructive manner to try and help this community are not children, and you stating that they are only exacerbates an already delicate situation, and anyone that chimed in on his coat tails are equally guilty as well. You do not even know all the various forms of complaints that have been lobbied and here you are talking out of your ass and calling people children. If someone here needs to grow up it's you.

I'm happy you are glad you got to play a in my personal opinion an illegal build, that would be banned by any other gm team that has been a part of this community. That you got to remove requirements from the rank 3 ronin school you took so you could make it work and ignore any form of different school requirements because why the hell not. But you have to get it into your head that while this makes you happy, there are other people that will object to that sort of nonsense, and that sort of objection does not make them any less for it. Some people want everyone to be on an even playing field, and don't want to bother the gm teams with special characters or special items to be effective as a character. Of course, that's probably my whiny child in me saying, rules should be stated and observed, and you shouldn't let people bypass them or write them out for the rule of cool. Because if you do, it will cause problems, and you will get the people abusing them starting to abuse those that are complaining. Which as any with two eyes can see is bad for the fucking community.

Jesus fucking Christ. I walked away from dawn one after joining it hesitantly I had recently had some IC problems with Canary and didn't know if i wanted to give it a go. I created a tribe and tried to give it a honest go to move past things. I quit on something like day four because I saw what I believed signs of blatant and egregious favoritism. I passed out what I wrote of the tribe to the other players that were members and i made my quiet exit. The game was not for me. Fast forward a few years, with me avoiding Canary and we get to Hoth. I do not bring the character that I want to bring because I don't want to cause undue friction, but during the game I receive an apology from Canary for the way things ended up and I accept.

Now comes Dawn 4, I'm 100% against joining I figure it will remain a mess of favoritism and rulings I disagree with. But people encourage me to give it another try, and Canary did offer me an olive branch, so I believe I owe it a second go around. Not to mention I respect Tyrus and he has encouraged me to play in the past. I join, I roll my eyes at a few things, point out that I believe Yuakra's build is illegal, the gm team tells me it's fine. I point out I disagree, and just block Yukara. Not my fucking problem. I'll roll through until the end because I like the Lion and I want to make sure there is a pc Lion thunder. Then this fucking gut punch of a ruling comes in. viewtopic.php?p=16359#p16359

And suddenly it feels like I might be disqualified from being a thunder because the gm team doesn't like me. Or I fail some sort of qualification that I don't even know what the fuck it is. Maybe I was too mean to the fucking villagers? Who the fuck knows. It was walked back though, and I stayed. I stayed because this setting matters to some of the people I know, and they wanted to see a Lion Thunder. Things only really went downhill from there though. But I stuck it out, happily got killed by Tyrus, and abandoned this series of games because it is not the place for me.

I did make some parting comments in my pf, because I respect Canary enough to explain what I think he did wrong, and why I think it was wrong. Favoritism was mentioned there, but it was not any of the major talking points. I also mentioned that he might want to consider ending the Dawn Campaign series, because I believe it is unhealthy for this community and Canary. Not eating for days and losing 15 pounds if fucking dangerous. If something needs to end to avoid that shit it needs to happen. You also tell by all this blowing up in Q and A's that something isn't healthy here, and it needs to be addressed before any future Dawn games. Because for the large part you only see this shit in Dawn, and no amount of gaslighting or happy comments are going to erase the fact.

Fuck it I'm done. The people that want to get ahold of me know how to do it already. For those that don't my discord is in my Q and A.
You won't see me on this forum again. So, comment if you want but I don't particularly care.

-Even out.

Ok, well that's a wall of bullshit and self-righteous excuse making for what has basically summed up as some weird mix of jealousy and insane entitlement to 'winning' in a fantasy rpg.

So let me start at the bit aimed at me. My build. I wanted to make a polearm monk - I like the archetype in fantasy, and there were/are no rules for that as spider monk doesn't exist yet. So I made my own. I would've happily taken HoV if asked, I had the exp for it, but was told I didn't need to because Unicorn being hated makes little sense yet. I was aiming to be a monster hunter, and I happened to make a very strong one. The build uses ronin schools to replace ranks, just like Dawn has been doing for multiple games, and many other games have done. This build probably would've flown in at least 50% of games. Taking it out on the GM because I came up with a strong combo is the same as the people in youtube comments after I won a GW Open with an off-meta faction accusing me of cheating, just because my build didn't match their preconceived notion of what was good. It's pathetic - this isn't a PvP game and I wrote a character I fully expected to be a Thunder and die horribly using their wound ranks as ablative shields for someone else who could live on in glory. And freaking out about balance in L5R of all games is hilarious, given the core rules are heinously imbalanced to begin with.

Here's the funny thing... all I did was ask. I didn't twist an arm, I didn't demand anything. If Canary said no, I would've tried to figure something else out. I have had *lots* of ideas shot down by Canary, and instead of complaining that other people got their families and techs and this and that, and that the Ongaku had fallen off the radar completely, I just shrugged, understood Canary was a busy GM with limited bandwidth, and made the best of things. I probably have the best case to complain about favoritism of anyone as my family, which had goal points from multiple players applied to it, simply *didn't appear* in the next game. Instead I just acknowledged that things hadn't worked out that time and moved on.

This is why I called people children, because there is this idea that they are entitled to X or Y. We aren't. This is a game, it is meant to be fun, the outcome is not assured and often the unexpected is more interesting anyway. In my entire history playing these games, I have never 'won' any of them. Never been chosen as the Thunder, been the hero of the story, saved the day, etc. I've ended most with my character beaten down and slinking away with their life. What I have never done is gone to the GMs and told them they were wrong, and that I deserve it.

You know, you really couldn't pull this kind of aggressive demanding with a GM like MS, they'd just ban you, and rightly so. Heck, they did ban me for a game when I got uppity about Great Destiny not saving my character. The job of the GM is to get to make final calls. As players, if you hate how a GM handles things, the healthiest option is to reach out politely, say you have concerns or worries, and not to say the GM is wrong, but that you would like more context, that you would like to offer an alternative, etc. Communicate in a healthy, non accusatory way, and understand GM'ing is massively tiring as there are 20+ other people all wanting to be the star of the show and get tons of attention. Other players ate Canary's bandwidth so much I would have simple PF questions slide for 2-3 days before I'd offer a reminder. I didn't get mad about it, because I know how freaking hard herding a bunch of prima-donnas can be.

Whatever your past history, it all reads as 'I didn't ask, the GM didn't make me the star of the show, it wasn't perfect' and all of that is perfectly valid as reason to choose to stop playing or avoid joining a game. I've had that approach with GMs where I found their style and mine just did not fit at all.

It is not an excuse to go in private and tell them they are a bad GM, that they are unfair, running a bad game, and do so with an intensity that drives them to a depressive or suicidal state. I don't care how 'right' you feel your complaints are, there is a way to offer feedback that doesn't make people feel like failures and garbage. That's why I called people children, because this is some high-school level sniping, and not a constructive and healthy way of offering feedback that builds up the good and requests constructive action toward remedying issues.

There are a lot of fragile folks in this space - mental issues, life experience, etc. So giving feedback may require more tact here than in some other places. That isn't 'toxic positivity'. I also dislike toxic positivity and shuffling things under the rug until they explode. There is a reason I have reached out and chatted with GMs and other players when I became aware of issues. I just did so in a collaborative way rather than taking an immediately confrontational stance. The fact that you started with 'I blocked this player instead of inquiring or talking to them at all' really speaks volumes to how conflict resolution was never even attempted. The fact that me having a strong build upset you so much that you just shut off any possible interesting RP opportunity speaks more to my stance than to yours.

So now, at this late stage, when the first indication I have had of your issue is a public blowup, yes, I call people children because a public tantrum is a child's behavior, and because I am seeing multiple people getting hit by the extremity of the negative feedback, that didn't need to be this extreme. I call it a child's behavior because it was how I reacted when I was a teen (a child) to bad things happening to my first character. I think the line between OOC and IC has gotten mightily blurred over time and people have forgotten that bad things can happen to their clan or character, and it isn't aimed at them at all.

With all of that said... I also do not wish to be a hypocrite. I am not attempting to hurt people, and so I will offer a sincere apology for calling people children and hurting their feelings. It was not my desire to cause additional upset, and reacting emotionally was not appropriate for me either. In this respect, I too, have been a child and may be called out as such.

So long story short, maybe the games should end, but I think maybe instead we should all remember we are in this together to try and have fun, we should try and work together to fix problems instead of laying them at someone else's feet and demanding they fix them. This isn't meant to be a competition - if you want to play competitive games, there are a lot of better, more balanced options there.

[Saru Shang]

Reading over Kenji's points, I do want to point out that his issues were never being the shining star of the game or jealous of 'winning' the game. His intention was to state that he wanted to be fair and even ground for all those involved, which is typically the given contract of a game. Of course, perfect balance is hard to achieve but those who blatantly tilt the scale do often make themselves glaringly obvious, which is a just cause for soured sentiments.

You have to understand that conjuring a new school or build out of existing parts but one that balks completely the structure of the RAW is most definitely glaring. It's not about taking a route less travelled or some sick GW army list that you've used to win a tournament, it's about not having a legal list. Again, it wasn't about winning the game

Canary didn't shoot down your build, after several ideas it seems. Multiple ask is a bit of arm twisting. But there's a bit of an ask of respect from the players to consider the community at large. How would getting this benefit over others who have been following the rules (as expected) look?

It doesn't look great and that's where the issue of fairness might come in.

[Ryoshun Yukara]

Explain to me where taking ronin paths is against the rules. What was the violation? That is the purpose of ronin paths, to let a non-clan samurai get access to techs at higher insight ranks. Should I just have had no techs? Was that what was wrong? All I'm hearing is 'you made something strong and I don't like it' which doesn't feel like a very honest complaint, especially when me doing so didn't in any way take away from someone else or stop them doing cool things. Yukara didn't do 99% of the cool stuff in this game.

It's tragic to me that when looking at Yukara, all people see are her stats. Not her story, not her character arc, her personality, the trials and tribulations she went on, etc. I happily took the lost arm that *destroyed* her build, and only got it back thinking it would create some weird knock-on penalty or unusual story beat. I wasn't in here to be dominating other players, and the assumption that I was is frankly pretty insulting and hostile. And calling me an outright cheater is particularly insulting, given I explicitly asked if this was following the rules before submitting. It's far from the most powerful build we've seen in PbP games, it doesn't abuse a variety of techs to make some duel monster that is used to bully other players... it just hits a big wolf with a stick.

And no, I didn't harass Canary to give me a build, again it's insulting that you insinuate all manner of wrong behavior on my part, with zero knowledge of whether that is true, purely because of sour grapes, because that's all this 'fairness' complaint really is. Everyone had the chance to take part. Everyone had the same starting point and character creation rules, and exp. We are on the same team, and I've had people playing sub-optimal builds get my characters killed before, and I never held it against them.

So yeah, I have lost all patience for these arguments and these bad faith behaviors from people who got a bigger role in the game than I did, but didn't get to have as impressive a dice pool for a single fight. We've had weird builds for all of FA history, going all the way back to Black Scroll, with a Ronin Shugenja Duelist.

[Yumi]

Explain to me where taking ronin paths is against the rules. What was the violation? That is the purpose of ronin paths, to let a non-clan samurai get access to techs at higher insight ranks. Should I just have had no techs? Was that what was wrong? All I'm hearing is 'you made something strong and I don't like it' which doesn't feel like a very honest complaint, especially when me doing so didn't in any way take away from someone else or stop them doing cool things. Yukara didn't do 99% of the cool stuff in this game.

It's tragic to me that when looking at Yukara, all people see are her stats. Not her story, not her character arc, her personality, the trials and tribulations she went on, etc. I happily took the lost arm that *destroyed* her build, and only got it back thinking it would create some weird knock-on penalty or unusual story beat. I wasn't in here to be dominating other players, and the assumption that I was is frankly pretty insulting and hostile. And calling me an outright cheater is particularly insulting, given I explicitly asked if this was following the rules before submitting. It's far from the most powerful build we've seen in PbP games, it doesn't abuse a variety of techs to make some duel monster that is used to bully other players... it just hits a big wolf with a stick.

And no, I didn't harass Canary to give me a build, again it's insulting that you insinuate all manner of wrong behavior on my part, with zero knowledge of whether that is true, purely because of sour grapes, because that's all this 'fairness' complaint really is. Everyone had the chance to take part. Everyone had the same starting point and character creation rules, and exp. We are on the same team, and I've had people playing sub-optimal builds get my characters killed before, and I never held it against them.

So yeah, I have lost all patience for these arguments and these bad faith behaviors from people who got a bigger role in the game than I did, but didn't get to have as impressive a dice pool for a single fight. We've had weird builds for all of FA history, going all the way back to Black Scroll, with a Ronin Shugenja Duelist.

Your inflammatory language is a problem, and your persecution complex is showing. Take a seat, maybe consider what was actually said.

You like to claim everyone is a child throwing a tantrum but the only one I see throwing a tantrum is you.

[Wu Zhe]

Snip

Mate, Yukara was clearly targeted in a public post. It is normal that they are upset.

Take your own medicine and chill

[Yumi]

Snip

Mate, Yukara was clearly targeted in a public post. It is normal that they are upset.

Take your own medicine and chill

Stop following me around. Go home.

[Wu Zhe]

Mate, we are on the same forum.

I'll happily chill if you do too

[Tyrus]

This post has been locked down as I don't believe anything productive is likely to come from it.