Salt kills roleplaying communities.
Not all at once. Usually, it happens slowly. One snarky comment here. One grudge there. Somebody feels slighted, so they take a shot back. Someone else remembers something that happened six months ago and brings it into an argument that has absolutely nothing to do with it. Before long, people aren't discussing ideas anymore. They're discussing people. Every disagreement comes with baggage, every thread has history attached, and everyone starts keeping score.
I've watched it happen to communities before. More than once.
Sometimes the people who behave the worst are also the loudest. Sometimes they eventually find themselves in positions of influence, where they can rub salt into everyone else's wounds while seeming almost untouchable themselves.
That can be incredibly frustrating, but lately I've been wondering something else. Why does this happen so often? Maybe some amount of friction is inevitable when you put a bunch of people in the same place for years at a time.
Think about it. We spend hours together every week. We write together. We debate lore together. We build factions, characters, stories, and imaginary governments together. We have different personalities, different expectations, different writing styles, different ideas about what makes roleplaying fun, and very different ways of communicating. Of course we're going to annoy each other sometimes. Maybe the strange thing isn't that roleplaying communities have conflict.
Maybe the strange thing would be if they didn't.
I certainly can't write something like this while pretending I've always handled those conflicts perfectly. I haven't. I've been a real tool in some communities I was part of in the past. I've said things I regret. I've handled disagreements badly. I've gotten angry when I should have listened. I've hurt people. (For example if anybody knows a roleplayer named Bane Nathos I owe that guy a big apology). There are probably people out there who remember a version of me that I'm not particularly proud of.
I can't change that. I can apologize for it. I can learn from it. I can try to be better than I was. That's about all any of us can do. Sometimes I still feel like there are people who have a target painted on my back. Sometimes it feels like certain people are waiting for me to say something just so they can jump into the thread, disagree with me, take a shot at me, or remind me that they don't particularly care for me. Maybe sometimes I'm right. Maybe sometimes I'm reading more hostility into something than was actually intended. Either way, it hurts, and when somebody hurts you, the natural response is often to hurt them back.
That's how we get the salt mine. They make a comment. You make one back. They remember that. You remember what they did three months ago. Somebody tells their friends. People start picking sides. Suddenly we're not a roleplaying community anymore. We're a schoolyard.
I'm tired of it. I don't want to live in salt anymore. Frankly, the only places I want to see excessive amounts of salt are when Sam and Dean Winchester are making a salt circle or when somebody puts a giant plate of French fries in front of me.
So I'm trying something different. I'm putting my saltshaker down. If you have a problem with me, come talk to me. Seriously. Maybe I said something that bothered you. Maybe I handled something badly. Maybe there's some ancient argument between us that has been quietly simmering for years. Maybe you've heard something about me from somebody else. Maybe we just got off on the wrong foot. Maybe I do something that just annoys the crap out of you.
Please come talk to me. I'll hear your side. If I owe you an apology, I'll apologize. If there's been a misunderstanding, maybe we can clear it up, and if we simply disagree about something, that's okay too. We don't have to agree about everything to treat each other with kindness. We might even discover that we like each other.
I encourage everyone else to consider doing the same thing. Is there someone here you've been carrying around a block of salt for? If it's appropriate, reach out. You don't have to become best friends. You don't have to pretend something didn't happen. You don't even necessarily have to agree about what happened, but maybe you can stop carrying it.
Because at the end of the day, look at what we're all doing here. We love telling stories. We love creating characters. We love Star Wars. We voluntarily spend several days every week pretending to be Jedi, smugglers, senators, Sith, soldiers, Mandalorians, royalty, criminals, and whatever other ridiculous characters our brains come up with. That should be fun, and the people on the other side of those characters are people we see all the time.
We're a community.
Communities don't have to be places where everybody agrees. They shouldn't be, but they can be places where disagreement doesn't automatically become hostility. Where old mistakes are allowed to become old mistakes. Where people are given room to grow. Where we assume a little more good faith. Where we can disagree about imaginary space politics without treating each other like mortal enemies.
I can't control whether anyone else does that. I can only control what I do. So I'll do my part. Come talk to me. No salt will be delivered. I'll listen to your side. I'll apologize where an apology is appropriate. I'll clear up misunderstandings where I can. And if anybody wants a fresh start with me, my door is open. I'm happy to be here, and genuinely, I'm happy all of you are here too.
We've got stories to tell.
Let's stop wasting so much time throwing salt at each other and get back to telling them.
