Though the poster might be a troll, they might also be posting that type of thing without malice. When that happens a poor innocent or more likely misguided poster gets flamed by troll hunter, whose comments then seem trollish to an outsider. Or to put it another way, He Who Fights Monsters has come into effect on the boards.
In response I would like to propose a variation of Hanlon's Razor to try to avoid newbies that happen into a quagmire from being flamed. Do not attribute to trolling what can be adequately explained by another motive.
It is a noble goal to try and raise the level of discourse in the forums.
Some points though: one of the major buzzwords for detecting trolls is, mistakenly, WOW. So, basically, people assume that if you mention WOW, you immediately hate 4e. I have 4 players in my campaign and three of them are officers in their WOW guild. I use WOW as my benchmark for how I run my Dungeons and Dragons campaign. I'm basically in competition with WOW for their time. So, WOW is part of my D and D thinking. As are the Lord of the Rings movies, as is Star Wars--that's their source material. When I started playing, it was Conan, Excalibur, and the Hobbit cartoon. No big deal.
That being said, I will NEVER mention WOW again on a post (except for ironically this one). I have never seen people so belligerent in my life.
Being one of these people (I'm still a bit singed), I think the answer is that you learn dang quick (or you get off the forums never to return) what subjects are taboo. For my part, my good experiences on the forums far outweigh the bad.
Some points though: one of the major buzzwords for detecting trolls is, mistakenly, WOW. So, basically, people assume that if you mention WOW, you immediately hate 4e. I have 4 players in my campaign and three of them are officers in their WOW guild. I use WOW as my benchmark for how I run my Dungeons and Dragons campaign. I'm basically in competition with WOW for their time. So, WOW is part of my D and D thinking. As are the Lord of the Rings movies, as is Star Wars--that's their source material. When I started playing, it was Conan, Excalibur, and the Hobbit cartoon. No big deal.
That being said, I will NEVER mention WOW again on a post (except for ironically this one). I have never seen people so belligerent in my life.
Screw the WoW haters. It's a very well designed game and setting that they're just jealous of because it has far more content and capability to keep the attention of their players than their own campaign settings.
Screw the WoW haters. It's a very well designed game and setting that they're just jealous of because it has far more content and capability to keep the attention of their players than their own campaign settings.
QFT
But WoW didn't get its "flamable +6" cause of that. It got there cause of the fact that people most of the time used it as derogatory term for describing 4ed. It actualy takes rather little repetition to get one into habit.
Yes newcomers that don't phraze themself too friendly get flamed. There where cases where such newcomers where not flame bating trolls (I know case where person came back to his thread after weeks of silence and sayed: "WTF? Whats with nuclear fallout?"), but rather those are more of exeptions than rules. As a rule someone comes to defend OP's case in the face of all monster hunters. To be fair first posts in such thread are rarely antagonistic troll shooters.
Good luck though; as long those "respectable types" think that it's okay to play Trolling For Trolls, then the situation will never improve.
Ah, the interweb. The only place where one can play Trolling For Trolls, and get away with it. I've personally witnessed more "respectable" people trolling the so called trolls, then the actual "trolls" themselves. The mindset somehow runs that it's O.K. to troll a troll, that isn't "trolling". Just payback. And it's too bad, because a lot of new folks to the forum come under this scrutiny from these "respectable" types, and start trolling the new gal/guy just because they may not have worded their post 100% troll-hunter free.
Good luck though; as long those "respectable types" think that it's okay to play Trolling For Trolls, then the situation will never improve.
Yeah, but how much sleep are you really going to lose over this, right? If I say that I do't like 4e's grab rules or that the game was revamped so as to appeal to a new class of fantasy fans who happens to like WOW or Mangan, my basic attitude concerning my opinions is "so what?" It doesn't really matter that much to me, one way or another. I'm not necessarilly saying that the system is bad because of its new influences, just that there are new influences. If, on the other hand, someone assumes that this means I hate WOW, Mangan, whatever and this causes their blood to boil and steam to shoot out their ears then I say the overreaction is their's, not mine.
I think of D and D as a fraternity/sorority. I find that I have enough in be bothered over. The real lesson is that if you didn't mean to throw sand in someone's face and they act like you did, you either have to ignore them or apologize. If you apologize and that only makes them angrier, well...option #1 has to come back on the table.
Of course, you have to learn that these are your only two options. The first time you get attacked, it's something of a shock, you're likely to get defensive. But after that, does anyone really continue to be surprised and outraged if they weren't already looking for a fight, be they troll or troll-hunting troll?
Isn't it a game that we play for fun?
I am not saying I haven't had debates about how some rules should work, but there was never any malice given or received (at least not that I perceived).
I think the new term we need is something about the fact that we should be enjoying the game, not getting angry about it.
There was a movie that came out a few years back called "Nacho Libre" starring Jack Black. He played a wannabe Mexican wrestler and would dress up as one in his room.
One day, a small boy caught Jack in his tights and wanted to know what he was doing.
Jack, in a think Mexican accent, said, "Sometimes. Wheen a man is alone in hees room. He likes to put on de stretchy pants. Ees for fun."
I propose we remind all the Trolls and Troll Hunters out there. D&D: Ees for fun.
I hate you. I hate you one and all.
Damn your eyes. (reference)
If you're going to jump down someone's throat over a post when you don't actually know them or their intentions (much less interested in finding them out), you're being a
What people are saying when they claim "4e = WOW" is, "World of Warcraft is filled with 8 year olds who behave badly, swear constantly and are annoying. You like 4e, therefore you're just as bad as those World of Warcraft players."
There is no way to innocently link or compare the (arguably) two most popular fantasy games and not find yourself in a flame war.
Deciding the worst players of a game defines the game itself is really just someone trying to stir up trouble. Thus...troll.
We could say the same thing about how bad cars are because some/many drivers are bad at it.
Let's be clear. We have Senior Volunteer Community Leads who act this way. An innocent making a reference to WoW will find themselves facing the following belief system:What people are saying when they claim "4e = WOW" is, "World of Warcraft is filled with 8 year olds who behave badly, swear constantly and are annoying. You like 4e, therefore you're just as bad as those World of Warcraft players."
There is no way to innocently link or compare the (arguably) two most popular fantasy games and not find yourself in a flame war.
Yeah, someone had to explain that to me. Weird.
I remember a long time ago people used to argue that D and D had too many magic items. The rationale was that one ring of invisibility=all of Tolkien, and I remember having an argument that the Conan universe basically made all wizards dark, evil, bad guys. It was interesting because they were arguements about how source material shaped the game, and they were kind of important because the guy who really wanted to play in the Conan universe kind of didn't want to have to think about all the spells that were going at any given time, and as a good DM, you listened and managed your campaign accordingly. But you can't even reference WOW in a forum without getting blasted even though its the source material for half the players out there as to what they think fantasy is. It's like if someone got mad every time King Arthur was mentioned.
It's like if someone got mad every time King Arthur was mentioned.
Oh, now I am mad! How dare you mentioned King Arthur?! {madness}
And acid. Don't forget about the acid!
I thought the best way to fight trolls was with flame.
Internet trolls not only are not harmed by flames, they thrive off of them.
And acid. Don't forget about the acid!
Nope again.
Internet trolls can only be slain by a moderator. However, if not feed they tend to go elsewhere.
A troll hunter generally try to make a trolls stay unpleasant enough that they leave, but it can backfire or get a newbie instead.
I thought the best way to fight trolls was with flame.
Internet trolls not only are not harmed by flames, they thrive off of them.And acid. Don't forget about the acid!
Nope again.
Internet trolls can only be slain by a moderator. However, if not feed they tend to go elsewhere.
A troll hunter generally try to make a trolls stay unpleasant enough that they leave, but it can backfire or get a newbie instead.
Waaay back when I think I or a friend of mine managed to slay, or at least drive off an internet troll with surgical strike arguments and logic. But that was more a result of a lot of us doing it to find weak spots and then hitting those. It might still be in the archives somewhere, it's much slower than mod powers, I might have been aided by houserules and aid another bonuses anyhow.