In theory, I should have been writing up Shadowrun recaps and posting them to the blog. Rocky wrote up his, and they definitely have his voice.
The game continues, thought recently it’s occurred to me that we might have a problem that I’ve been minimising, in how one of the other players treats the rest of the group. The player and I have personal history, so it makes it hard for me to be unbiased, or even compensate for my bias.
A couple of years back, he was the supervisor who asked me to sign a document saying that I agreed that I had violated the attached code of conduct, that I understood that further violations would result in my termination, despite the fact that the copy didn’t actually have a written code of conduct, certainly not one that was attached to the letter I was being asked to sign.
Prior to that, he was a coworker with a tendency to make jokes and slack off. Then again, pretty much everyone who worked there had a tendency to slack off and try to do as little as possible. It’s been a few years, and I’m not sure how accurate my memory is, but that’s my impression of the place now.
After I refused to sign the letter, a friend of mine offered me work in film since I was frustrated with the way the office was being run. The original plan was that he’d put together the code of conduct and I’d sign it. In theory, this also ensure that other people in the office would be held to those standards. Strangely enough, that didn’t happen, and I worked in film for a bit. The long hours were a bit of a problem sometimes.
He’d been in a group with us in the past, when we’d done Shadowrun. I’m having trouble remember much of that campaign. I recall we had some difficulties with people flaking out.
But, as he’d been part of the group in the past, when we started up again, he was one of the first to respond to the question on Facebook.
His previous character was a stealth infiltrator, I recall that much.
His current character is a bit of a tank, a big heavy troll who can absorb a fair amount of punishment. To the point where it’s a bit disruptive to the game, trying to have anything show up that would be able to threaten him, that won’t just kill the other party members.
At the same time, he’s also been antagonistic to the other players. Mostly in character. A few sessions ago, his character choked another player’s character, due to being frustrated. His character also has anger issues, some sort of berserker rage, though it hasn’t really been a factor yet, directly, though indirectly it’s been used for justification as to why the character should get his way.
Though two characters have been replaced, one of the ones he was in the most conflict with, has switched out for someone more social. The other character was more of a character issue.
Two of the players seem concerned about it, one of the players was absent for the choke and doesn’t seem to have a strong opinion, and I’m restricting myself from having an opinion, since I think it’s tainted by personal issues. Though some would say, with that history, why would you be playing with that person in the first place?
One obvious solution is to start including an X card. Basically, it allows players to signal that they are uncomfortable with content, without it needing to be a big deal. But that’s mostly because of my concerns some of the content the other day, with the snuff films that they were trying to track down.
The biggest issue with the internal violence, is that it feels like it isn’t quite severe enough, that it’s something that can be ignored. And that’s uncomfortable in it’s own way.