You've Received a Correction... How You Respond Matters!

As a member of a role playing group, it is very likely that at some point, you will receive correction from the administrator or moderators. When this happens, the way that you respond to the staff is very important to what happens next!

Let us use my example of metagaming, since I've been talking so much about that recently. The administrator of your age play rpg has just come to you in a private message and has asked you to please refrain from characterizing characters you don't own. She cites specific examples of how you are doing this. Maybe you've mentioned that John is a great fisherman or that Sara can't really sew all that well (even though she's been making her own clothes for years).

The conversation might go something like this:

ADMIN: "There have been some complaints about how you said that Sara can't sew very well. It's bothering a few people. This is considered metagaming because you're changing a character without the permission of the person who owns that character."

YOU: "Oh. I hadn't really realized that I was doing that. I'm really sorry. I'll double-check my posts next time."

This is the right way to go about receiving a correction. No feelings need to be hurt in this case, and life goes on.

However, if the conversation goes like this, then you must understand that you are probably lining yourself up for disappointment:

ADMIN: "There have been some complaints about how you said that Sara can't sew very well. It's bothering a few people. This is considered metagaming because you're changing a character without the permission of the person who owns that character."

YOU: "Well Sara messed up that outfit that she made for Patty. So she can't really sew."

ADMIN: "But that isn't really up to you to decide, is it? Would you like it if the person who plays Sara decided that your character Greg was really clumsy? Or a bad basketball player? Or that he couldn't swim?"

YOU: "That's not what I'm doing. Sara messed up that outfit for Patty. Remember?"

ADMIN (getting frustrated): "Yes, I do remember that. But I'm asking you to please stop doing it. Sara's keeper gets to decide what her talents are, not you. She may have improved her sewing ability since then, or it might have been a one time mistake. Stop doing it. I'm asking you to stop doing it."

YOU: "Okay."

I assume at this point that you can see how an administrator might be frustrated with this conversation, and might be telling themselves in the back of their mind that they need to watch this person for metagaming in the future, because it could be an ongoing problem and the player may need to be more forcefully (physically) corrected with a temporary ban or moderated posts if they are available.

Interestingly, in the first case I, as an admin, would be more likely to give the person more chances than in the first case, because it's obvious that they understand that they did something wrong and they are going to try to correct it. We currently have a member at Foster Forest who consistently does this, and this person is a pleasure to have around and is not at risk of further discipline at all because they are genuinely trying to work with us.

Unfortunately, what tends to happen is that the member in the second example will often continue to exhibit the same behavior with whatever the original problem was. In one case we had someone who was bratting in the extreme, and we had to correct them. This person's response to correction was so bad that their response itself got them banned.

The key factor here is to be gracious. The administrators of your group work their tail ends off to bring you the best group they can. That means keeping negativity and drama out of the group whenever possible. It means taking care of fairly large numbers of sensitive people, and trying to do so diplomatically. It means doing unpleasant things, like handling the correction of adults who should know that following the rules is a requirement of the game.

Show the staff of your group respect. This is imperative. Respecting the staff of your group may make the difference between receiving a private and a public correction (because sometimes having "witnesses" is a good thing) and it might make the difference in whether or not you find yourself getting banned.

Accept correction gracefully. If you don't understand what you're being corrected for, ask. If you're still confused, ask for another person to explain it to you. Most groups have more than one staff member and we all communicate differently. There is no shame in asking!