Gross Roleplay 3 months later

[Teenyinnit]

Hello,

3 months on from the Gross Roleplay change how are we feeling?

Personally I think the change has overall been very positive, I've had so many great interactions with men recently where they now resort to humorous flirting instead of disgusting roleplay.
As an officer I get kidnapped a lot, and I haven't once felt uncomfortable or uneasy since the rule came in.

I was wondering how other women and men felt about the change?

[Larintai]

Its been a nice change, and people who are newer to the city or have come back once informed have reacted positively to being told.  I've thankfully only ever had one interaction on the server where I was not asked and encountered it but that has been it and that was before the enforcement.  Its definitely been a more positive change in my opinion.

[Ms.Somebody]

I haven’t noticed much of a change personally, but that’s only because Celeste has icly changed jobs where she doesn’t interact much with the public anymore outside of a very professional setting and usually with men whom bear guns hanging around. There are also a few characters that I still do avoid in character as much as possible due to negative character interactions between my character and theirs, but otherwise there have been no issues regarding interactions between my character and men.

Also I think people recognize Celeste as being married and unobtainable so they move on. There haven’t been many gross rp moments for Celeste otherwise, a few misogynistic ones inside the ofrp rules, but nothing that would largely upset me personally as a player.

The rule change I believe has been a largely positive one overall however, because I do feel like my interactions between Celeste and male characters is not as full of uncertainty, or fearing what could happen, and going forth if I was to experiment playing with a non legal character, I don’t feel like my character would be subjected to anything largely upsetting either.

[Bala]

Honestly, I'm somewhat mixed on the whole episode.

For my involvement in the whole thing, I don't feel particularly good about the personal reasons about why I got involved because unbeknownst to me, it was built on some bullshit. I still get pissed off about it when I think about it now, but that's my problem to deal with.

That being said, we ended up being pretty matter of fact and explicit about how we felt about that sort of behavior and made it really difficult for a small minority of people to behave like absolute shit bags to people. It was stressful for the people legitimately on the recieving end of that stuff, it was stressful for the people that wanted to see something done about it and it was stressful for the people addressing it as well.

That being said, we're a better community for it now, so that will be my take away.

Edited May 15, 2025 by Bala

[Felarx]

I think it's been great. I have come across multiple women and witnessed multiple women be flirted on instead of as you mentioned, attacked in a sexual way with words. 

It's been more of a bit flirty and if the female in question wasn't happy or felt comfortable with what was said they'd make it known and it would be left at that. W change

[Danny_V]

Massive W for the community.

Healthy community = Healthy roleplay

Shame it took so much ground work for this rule to be implemented.
Fake concerns over fake accusations ended up protecting real predators for too long

Like I said MASSIVE W.

 

[skeletee]

I can speak from the perspective of one of the leaders of the illegal faction, Girlies, of which its majority is made up of women. One of the concerns we had about running the faction was the reception from the server due to the server culture, particularly in terms of crime RP. I anticipated people to be misogynistic, but I have to admit that I did not anticipate the severity.

What I quickly realised, and I am sure I can speak for the other command, was that by leading a faction like GCC, we were not only responsible for all the normal faction duties (e.g. management of members, hitting thread quotas, attending meetings), but also advocating and doing what we could to support the women in it. Over the course of the past few months, I was irked at some of the things people were saying/doing to myself and other women, for no reason other than the fact that we were women. One of the most frustrating parts, aside from being/seeing others on the receiving end of unwarranted Offensive/Gross RP, was the brick wall we faced when trying to figure out if there was anyone that would take our accounts seriously. I was asking myself; OK, that didn't sit right with me, but is it really serious enough to report or bring up? If I bring up my discomfort to them, are they going to respect my boundaries or deflect/shut them down? I am still hesitant, but I do feel less tolerant.

The change has overall been positive because it helped standardise expectations more among players and staff. It is a shame that we had to implement an explicit rule to get to this point for people to practice basic respect, but it is also not anything new within the gaming community. There is still a long way to go, so I hope that people do not fall complacent and that those directly responsible for the server are open to change and can actively evolve. As a community, we should continue hold perpetuators accountable and stand up for one another. It's how we do our part to keep the community safe-ish.

Edited May 19, 2025 by skeletee

[Diligo]

21 hours ago, skeletee said:

If I bring up my discomfort to them, are they going to respect my boundaries or deflect/shut them down? I am still hesitant, but I do feel less tolerable. 

100 times yes. Act on the RP of your character, you are a gang leader, be assertive of your boundaries.
That is part of RP especially if it is in rules

If they dont respond in a respectful manner to your proclaimed boundaries, there is your report and that is another member being taught a lesson.

I dont think you understand that YOU and other Female Roleplayers here (and other people that might encounter that) ...
YOU ALL are the first front of a new age to set the standard to any newcomer female roleplayers.

You got the rule, and the more you enforce it, the more chance is we get more female roleplayers and therefore more different type of RP instead of Men on Men dick measuring contest. Which is ofcourse is fun for me still but more female roleplayers equals more different types of roleplay literally. So lets get that in!!!

[Larintai]

Okay, well.... now to edit my previous response. There's still a few around. Found that out last night that. But at least there's still good men on this server who stand up the best they can for the girls. I've seen it both times now. And thankfully it's not a regular occurrence. 

[Ms.Somebody]

18 hours ago, Larintai said:

Okay, well.... now to edit my previous response. There's still a few around. Found that out last night that. But at least there's still good men on this server who stand up the best they can for the girls. I've seen it both times now. And thankfully it's not a regular occurrence. 

Unfortunately I do have to agree with Larin a bit, as when I was writing my previous response to this topic, I had forgotten about an incident I had experienced on my less known, not legal character. Some individual had kept tackling her whenever he had seen her, didn’t know him, he didn’t know my character, frustrating for me as a player but whatever, I moved on.

But it kept happening, and then I went to park up at parking and he once again tackled my character, I was absolutely done, but I held it together, threatened him as per my characters personality that if he did it again she was throwing hands, and he began outright flirting with me, disregarding my characters anger, and despite this character of mine being outright hostile and aggressive back at him after he dismissed the first “No”.

None of the men around had tried to stop him, but one had apologized for the other man’s actions after the first man had left. It’s not gross rp, or ofrp, but it’s still a bad look for a man to overlook a woman being hostile and aggressive in response to his flirting to keep going despite her saying No, and showing absolutely no interest. It’s not playing hard to get. It’s saying get out of my face or else.

[RustyOsprey2]

Its so cringe that men act in a way that there even needs to be a rule. So childish its crazy

[Bala]

Eh, this is not going to be a popular statement to make but I think it's also important that we don't get the stance on offensive roleplay twisted and end up in some sort of situation where you can't really say or do anything negative to another person without it turning into a report situation.

The ORP rules are there to protect players from extreme cases of those actions that we don't want on our server.

I think it's really important that we don't use these rules for situations that they are not intended. Because these rules aren't an invisible bubble for you not to have to deal with a situation that you don't like, it's for the situations where things go way too far.

[Danny_V]

I dont think there was a single person advocating for these rulechanges because of situations they simply didn't like.
It was asked for because these situations went to far, and when situations went too far the people that were forced into those situations were blamed for not doing XYZ when they reported said situations.

Every time a situation was reported, things were swept under the rug and pretended it was a one-off situation..
The community finally organised, became vocal and it was no longer feasable to keep pretending these weren't a systemic problem of the way these situations were dealt with.

Dont you think it's an objectively good thing that people can now report situations they felt they were forced into non-consentual Gross-RP? (Just as people can report cheaters or other types of rulebreakers.)

I personally think it's pathetic that people go on RP servers to wallhack/aimbot to get a PvP advantage... but do i think it's bad that there's rules in place to deal with people that engage in these cheats? No, ofcourse not.
Do I think this server would have a healthy community if these rules weren't in place? Also no.

Its a shame the rule needed to be put in place and that without it, people lack the common decency not to force women into GRP... but I guess people just need firm boundaries...

[Ms.Somebody]

2 hours ago, Bala said:

—Snip—

I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding, I do not mind negative interactions between characters, they are what fuel stories and developments. My issue is where I, as a player and a character give clear signals that they are pushing on boundaries and repeatedly telling them to back off and they are ignoring it, I, as a player should not have to reach for the Ooc button to be like “I don’t like this”, my characters reaction and response should be the first warning you get, if I have to reach for Ooc to inform you that I don’t like the roleplay, then you have gone too far by that point.

[Bala]

7 hours ago, Danny_V said:

I dont think there was a single person advocating for these rulechanges because of situations they simply didn't like.
It was asked for because these situations went to far, and when situations went too far the people that were forced into those situations were blamed for not doing XYZ when they reported said situations.

Every time a situation was reported, things were swept under the rug and pretended it was a one-off situation..
The community finally organised, became vocal and it was no longer feasable to keep pretending these weren't a systemic problem of the way these situations were dealt with.

You'd think and hope that would be the case, wouldn't you? Unfortunately though, without getting into specifics and earning myself some sort of community punishment, not everyone that reported did so in good faith and there was in fact, some instances of it being argued that it was misused for personal reasons.

The problem with that being the case, besides it being a pretty scummy move, is that it makes it more difficult for genuine people to be taken seriously and believed, which was the whole reason behind the change in the first place.

I'm glad we've switched it up, it's one of the best things we've done but it certainly opened my eyes when it comes to trusting people at their word.

You said some people need firm boundaries and it's very true.

5 hours ago, Ms.Somebody said:

I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding, I do not mind negative interactions between characters, they are what fuel stories and developments. My issue is where I, as a player and a character give clear signals that they are pushing on boundaries and repeatedly telling them to back off and they are ignoring it, I, as a player should not have to reach for the Ooc button to be like “I don’t like this”, my characters reaction and response should be the first warning you get, if I have to reach for Ooc to inform you that I don’t like the roleplay, then you have gone too far by that point.

If we deep it, Eclipse is a multi-national and multi-cultural community with individuals from all different walks of life. Some of our members are flag-waving pride allies, some are genuine feminists or social justice warriors. But also, some of our community come from corners of the world where seeing homosexuality as wrong or women as objects is somewhat second nature.

Right or wrong, that's something that is ingrained in some people from an early age and like it or not, if that is in them, they'll bring that behavior online with them and not feel the same way about how those things effect a person, that you might. 

Some of our community have negative relationships or have had little positive interactions with women or trans people or gay people. Some people don't read social cues very well or at all. Some people are just content to push the envelope with people as far as they can, safe in the knowledge that they are somewhat anonymous on the internet.

I don't say this to defend any sort of negative behavior but to explain that, what may seem like a clear signal to you, might not be clear and definitive to someone else and it may be necessary for you or someone in your position to go into /b and be clear that you're uncomfortable with it because there is a definitive line established then and if they still continue then you have them bang to rights.

I feel like to most people, there are clear lines of what is acceptable negative roleplay scenarios and actual harassment. I just don't want Eclipse to become too sanitary in the process of not enough people knowing where those lines are. It's not hard to take not interested for an answer or not use derogatory slurs in an argument with someone, or at least it shouldn't be.

Edited May 18, 2025 by Bala

[Jordan]

19 hours ago, Bala said:

I just don't want Eclipse to become too sanitary in the process of not enough people knowing where those lines are. It's not hard to take not interested for an answer or not use derogatory slurs in an argument with someone, or at least it shouldn't be.

This is not a hard thing to understand, there are things you just shouldn't say. I know you know what i'm talking about as we have talked extensively in DMs about it. There is literally ZERO risk of this becoming "Too Sanitary" The change was good, but to be honest there needs to be more, hopefully we can reach that point sometime soon.

Edited May 18, 2025 by Jordan

[Bala]

1 hour ago, Jordan said:

This is not a hard thing to understand, there are things you just shouldn't say. I know you know what i'm talking about as we have talked extensively in DMs about it. There is literally ZERO risk of this becoming "Too Sanitary" The change was good, but to be honest there needs to be more, hopefully we can reach that point sometime soon.

You see this is the sort of thing that I'm talking about though.

The incident in question was that, during a heated exchange with the Waterfelons, I said to Aurora that "I didn't recognise her with her clothes on". In isolation, that seems like an out of pocket statement to make to a person. But, when you consider that I said that exact line to multiple people, male and female, with the intention of it just being something edgy but funny to say to people, off the cuff. I've said it to Skylar Dawson but I've said it to Jason Steel, I've said it to Lewis Langley, I've said it to Lola. They're all friends of mine. 

On my previous interactions with Aurora, we had talked shit back and forth so as far as I'm concerned, the same thing applied to her as the others I'd mentioned. But then consider, I didn't say that to her privately nor in a setting I had control of and I didn't continue to say it, despite never being prompted to stop. It became clear from her lack of responses, she didn't like that joke and despite being under no obligation to do so, I contacted her privately and apologized because not everyone is going to take something well and I'm not looking to upset someone out of character.

Her reaction to the comment was understandable and when it became apparent, I did the right thing and apologized. I've got no problem with doing that, even if I don't necessarily believe that I went too far because it's not for me to make someone else feel like shit is it?

That being said, your overtly protective, over-reaction of trying to make me feel like I was one of these predatory motherfuckers that be trying to force people into fucked up situations was uncalled for. Truth is, I misjudged the rapport I had with someone, said something stupid without thinking that they got embarrassed about, with the intention to be funny and then apologized to them for it, not because it was even really over the line but because it made the person behind the character feel bad. That's it, really.

It's not for me to make judgement about why you choose to take the stances that you take, at the same time though, there is a difference between someone being a bit of a dick in the heat of the moment saying something stupid and someone that is actually harassing people. Using my platform to try and force these ORP changes into existence is one of the best things I've been a part of in Eclipse because the people that actually need targeting and removing, should be cast out of the community.

Eclipse is not a Twitch friendly server and shouldn't be either. Just follow the server rules, respect the person behind the character you are interacting with and be willing to apologize if you make a mistake. No need to water the server down even more.

[Jordan]

18 minutes ago, Bala said:

The incident in question

I am not speaking about one interaction im saying, there should be zero concern for anything "Too Sanitary" for the server. There are things that escalate beyond things you said, sometimes people are afraid to speak up which has been mentioned before in this same thread. I dont know exactly what you think is going to happen with further changes to be implemented in the way of protecting our community members but I assure you they are irrational fears. Seeing how hard people had to fight for what we (luckily) got, I doubt any major change would be implemented that would affect your RP. That's all I have to say on the topic.