One Hour One Life Forums

FutureBird has a very good point. We can't discuss this on a constructive level until we know we're discussing the same thing.

To me, griefing is not pvp. Although pvp can be part of it. To me, griefing is trolling.

What if we substitute 'griefing' with 'trolling' in Jason's original post, does it still make sense?

To me, this just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Trolling has no place even in Jason's vision of including the part of the darker aspects of humanity into the gameplay.

And the reason is that what it seems to me that Jason tries to accomplish, is for real stories to emerge from our play. What is a story? It's a question everyone alive probably think they know the answer to, and yet if it were that easy, there wouldn't be courses at university level trying to explore the topic. What is a story?

A story is when conflict happens because of a reason, and the characters involved reveal who they are when forced to face this conflict.

There is no reason behind trolling, other than someone having fun detached from and outside of the world we're building together.

What if you sat down to watch Romeo and Juliet, and in the first scene Mercutio stabs Romeo, then proceeds to kill his whole family, and the story ends with Mercutio gleefully shouting "Haha, killed you all!"
Not quite a satisfying experience, is it?
To be fulfilling, there has to be a build up. There has to be a chain of things happening and choices made that leads a person to do the deeds.

Trolling is bad because it breaks the immersion. It takes away the deeper, darker aspect of the game because there is no reason behind it. It makes people less involved with the world and their lives, not more. It's a constant reminder that "oh yeah, this is not a real world, we're just a bunch of people playing a game. This is what I have to expect."

What if I was playing The Witcher III, a game I adore, with deep characters, surprisingly meaningful encounters, a world I'm able to feel like I'm part of, and what if I was going to talk to my mentor and discuss the latest clues about the whereabouts of my missing loved ones. Before he got to say a word,  a random naked villager boy ran up with a knife, stabbed him, and now he's dead. Maybe I'm able to kill this naked boy. Great. It begs the question though - where tf did this boy come from? Was he an assassin? Was he on drugs? Is something going on here that I need to pay attention to?

No, he's just a troll. Moving on.

It takes you out of the world instantly.

It creates boredom.

It's a bug, not a feature.

My grandfather was a twin. His mother gave birth to twins twice. She had ten kids I think in total, and all of them survived, but many in those days weren't as lucky. My grandmother had two siblings who died as children I believe.

I bet that my great grandmother never, never looked at her four twin babies and thought: Hmmm, my kids seem to be sick. They're making strange noises, and their faces are green. They're probably griefers, I'd better not feed them just in case they intend to destroy me and my family when they grow up.

It breaks the immersion.

Trolling is lame. Griefing is lame. It has no place in OHOL.

And yes, I agree that unfortunately griefing can't be eradicated. It will always exist in some form. But we need to acknowledge that it is detrimental to the game if we at least are going to be able to have a good conversation about it.